Of these I can say something about virtually all of them:
Haile Selassie - emperor of Ethiopia, inspiration for the Rastafarian religion.
Anwar el-Sadat - president of Egypt, Nobel prize winner, assassinated.
El Cid - greatest knight of mediaeval Spain, played role in the reconquista. Inspiration for superb movie with Chuck Heston.
Guiseppe Garibaldi - liberator of Italy, not responsible for baking biscuits subsequently named after him...
Jacques Cartier - French explorer active in the Americas.
Mungo Park - British explorer active in Africa.
John Cabot - Italian explorer in English service. Sailed in "the Matthew" to the Americas.
Arthur Brown and John Alcock - First men to fly across the Atlantic in 1919 - beating Lindbergh by nearly a decade.
Valentina Tereshkova - Soviet Cosmonaut, first woman in space.
Timothy Berners-Lee - English computer genius, inventer of the worldwide web.
Werner Heisenberg - Physiscist, deviser of the "uncertainty principle" fundamental to quantum physics.
James Joule - 19th century English physicist.
William Thomson - aka Lord Kelvin. Major British scientist.
Wilhelm Rontgen - Discoverer of the x-ray.
Enrico Fermi - Nuclear physicist.
Joseph Priestley - Chemist. One of the discoverers of oxygen.
Fritz Haber - Chemist.
Carolus Linnaeus - Naturalist, deviser of the binary system of taxonomy (ie where each species is identified by two Latin names, the first for its genus, the second for the species).
Isambard (Kingdom) Brunel - Greatest engineer of all time. Built Great Western railway, SS Great Western, SS Great Eastern, SS Great Britain, Clifton Suspension Bridge etc etc etc.
Guglielmo Marconi - Pioneer of radio.
Robert Watson-Watt - Pioneer of radar.
Eli Whitney - Inventer of cotton gin.
Elisha Otis - Inventor of elevator.
Frank Whittle - Pioneer of jet engines.
Karl Benz - Pioneer of the motor car.
John Holland - Pioneer of the submarine.
Joseph Montgolfier - Pioneer (with brother Etienne) of hot air ballooning.
Igor Sikorsky - Pioneer of the helicopter.
Thomas Sopwith - British aircraft manufacturer - built the most successful WW1 fighter aircraft, the Camel.
Clarence Birdseye - Devised frozen food (most of which is now named after him).
Emily Bronte - English author of the 19th century.
Jules Verne - French author of the 19th century, famous for early science fiction.
Fyodor Dostoevsky - Russian author of the 19th century.
Louisa May Alcott - American author of the 19th century, wrote "Little Women".
(Jean de) La Fontaine - French writer of the 17th century, wrote fables.
George Orwell/Eric Blair - English writer of 20th century, wrote "1984" and "Animal Farm".
Dante Alighieri - Mediaeval Italian poet, creator of "La Divina Commedia" (of which "Inferno" is the only bit anyone seems to read these days).
Jean Baptiste Pocquelin/Moliere - French writer of 18th century, best known for the satire "Candide".
Edmond Rostand - French writer, best known for novel "Cyrano de Bergerac".
Anton Chekhov - Russian playwright of 19th century.
Thomas Paine - American pamphleteer of the 18th century.
I think that's 42.
error there. It was Birdseye who invented frozen food, McCormick invented the mechanical reaper.
I don't know who built the steam engine - but I do know that the first person to build a steampowered boat was a Scotsman...
Only one mistake: Candide was written by Voltaire, not Moliere 
